Innovating for Freedom on an African island

Isaac’s interview for the NPCC Mauritius

The NPCC Newsltter, Vol.9, N°1-2, 2010, p. 4

In the context of its tenth anniversary, the National Productivity and Competitiveness Council organized a lecture on the theme “liberating leadership” by Prof Isaac Getz of the ESCP Europe Business School, Paris Campus at the Octave Wiéhé Auditorium on 15th March 2010. Prof Getz, who has co-authored ‘Freedom, Inc.: The remarkable no-cost way to lead your business to higher productivity, profits and growth’ shared his thinking with us in this issue related to innovation and leadership. Excerpts follow:

Prof Getz, with your outstanding experience as an academic and researcher on topics related to innovation, management, corporate excellence. How would you define management innovation?

As opposed to the traditional management principles and practices of planning, coordinating and controlling, management innovation focuses on how we innovate in the way we manage. Management innovation should aim at the management processes so as to create an organizational environment where people basically are self-controlled and self-motivated, and where the former manager becomes the leader at the service of the employees.

Why is it that management innovation matters so much these days?

The way you manage or lead people is a critical issue because if you do it in the wrong traditional hierarchical way, commanding and in a controlled manner telling people how to do their job. There is high probability that you end up with demotivated and disengaged workforce who will come to work for the only purpose of making hours and exchanging it fur money and this is not the way to build a competitive and highly performing world-class company.